saying:

“Linguistically, faith means affirmation. The Messenger addressed people only in the language of the Arabs, without changing it; therefore, what he meant by faith was affirmation.”

They then said: “Affirmation takes place only in the heart and on the tongue, or in the heart alone. Thus, deeds are not part of faith.” Their principal evidence that faith means affirmation is His statement:

“But you would not believe us.”

That is, “You would not affirm the truth of what we say.”

They may be answered as follows: The term “faith” occurs in the Quran and hadith more frequently than other terms. It is the foundation of the religion, through which people emerge from darkness into light. Through it, the blessed are distinguished from the wretched, and one knows whom to befriend and whom to oppose. The entire religion rests upon this, and every Muslim needs to understand it. Could the Messenger have neglected to explain all this and left it dependent on these two premises?

It is well known that the evidence they cite to establish that faith means affirmation comes from the Quran. Yet the meaning of faith has been transmitted from the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, through transmission far more widespread than that of the wording of this expression. The entire Muslim community needs to know what faith is, and so they transmit its meaning, unlike a particular word in a surah. Most believers had not memorized this surah. The explanation of the foundation of the religion therefore cannot be made to rest on premises such as these.

This is why disputes and confusion have proliferated among those who turned away from Allah’s straight path and followed other paths. They became among those who divided their religion and became sects, and among those who became divided and differed after clear proofs had come to them. This is a general, unrestricted argument.

It may then be said: Neither of these two premises is conceded. Who says that the word “faith” is synonymous with “affirmation”? Even granting that the meaning is sound when the latter is used in this passage, why